


Hear My Train A Comin'

by autoraboricua



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Afterlife, M/M, sirius black is a die young
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 07:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17279873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autoraboricua/pseuds/autoraboricua
Summary: There’s a train waiting at Platform 9 ¾ when Remus arrives. It’s for him. He knows this, but he also knows he’s supposed to wait.





	Hear My Train A Comin'

There’s a train waiting at Platform 9 ¾ when Remus arrives. The train is white. The platform is white. Remus remembers a flash of green light. He remembers pink hair. He remembers a black dog and a gray rat and a white stag. Colors whirl through his mind, patches of old scenes that fade out around the edges. The longer Remus stands on the platform, the less he remembers, but still he stands.

 

There’s a train waiting at Platform 9 ¾, but Remus doesn’t get on it. Not yet.

 

* * *

 

“I’ll be the first of us to die,” Sirius says matter-of-factly.

 

They’d been talking about an upcoming charms essay that neither of them had started yet, so Remus isn’t entirely sure where this all is coming from.

 

“Beg pardon?” he says, arching an eyebrow as Sirius tips back in his chair. Sirius stares up at the dimly lit ceiling of the library and taps an arrhythmia into the leg of his trousers.

 

“I’m just saying,” the faint beat pauses as Sirius swallows thickly, then continues, “I’m the first to go.”

 

Remus isn’t sure how he’s meant to respond. Usually when Sirius gets into these moods, he’s looking for something specific. Something he needs, but doesn’t know how to ask for. Remus shuts his Charms book and slides it to the side.

 

“What makes you say that?” he asks.

 

Sirius’s gaze slips from the flickering candlelight above and settles on Remus. He shrugs.

 

“Obvious, isn’t it?” he says.

 

Remus shakes his head no. The corners of Sirius’s mouth tilt up just a bit, amused in a sad sort of way.

 

Sirius sit upright, the front legs of the chair thunking on the stone floor. “Think about it like a book. That’s up your alley, eh Moony?”

 

“Suppose so.”

 

“Right well, if this is all a book,” Sirius says, gesturing to the quiet tableau of the library on a Sunday afternoon, “Prongs has to be the main character. Smart, but not too smart. Good-looking, but not too good-looking. Gets the girl in the end. That’s a protagonist if I’ve ever seen one.”

 

“Pads, I don’t-”

 

“And I think Wormy has to be the comic relief sidekick,” he barrels on, “I mean he follows Prongs around everywhere, and he’s always good for a laugh. Granted it’s usually at his own expense, but still.”

 

“Alright,” Remus says with a nod. He can sense somehow that this conversation has to happen. It’s important to Sirius in some way. “What does that make me?”

 

Sirius eyes him intently. His gaze is heavy and heated, and it makes something wiggly stir in the pit of Remus’s stomach. Sirius has been looking at him like this more and more often lately. It’s odd. Odd but not unpleasant.

 

“You, my dear Moony, are the damsel in distress,” Sirius finally says with a crooked grin.

 

Remus snorts, “You have to be joking. Not much of a beauty, am I?”

 

“Debatable,” Sirius says with a flash of a smirk, but he continues before Remus has time to process what that could possibly mean, “Point is, Moony, you’re the princess trapped under a terrible curse until the hero and the sidekick sweep in to rescue you from your life of suffering.”

 

In a funny way, Remus can see what he’s getting at. He just doesn’t understand where this is going.

 

“So what does that make you?” he asks, “The villain?”

 

Remus knows immediately he’s said the wrong thing. Sirius flinches back just a bit. The arrhythmia kicks up again on his leg, running at double pace. Even though Sirius had apologized and Remus accepted, the Snape incident is still a freshly scabbed wound between them. They have to tread lightly around each other still, which neither of them are used to.

 

“Sorry,” Remus says, looking down at the grain of the ancient wooden table, “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

 

“S’alright,” Sirius shrugs, then laughs so loud Remus expects Madame Pince to swoop down from the rafters. “Actually I think I’d be a pretty good villain. I look great in leather, for one.”

 

Not that he disagrees, but Remus is growing tired of this game. “Pads, what-”

 

“No, I’m what they call a Die Young,” Sirius says with an air of finality.

 

Remus shakes his head, “Never heard of it.”

 

Sirius groans and leans forward across the table. “You know! That character in the book who you just know is going to croak before the second half. He’s reckless, and he has great hair, and everyone loves him, but he’s nothing but trouble. That’s the Die Young.”

 

Remus privately acknowledges that Sirius has just described himself to a T.

 

“I don’t think that’s a thing, Pads.”

 

Sirius looks down. He traces the rim of a knot with his finger tip, “What I mean is things are going to get bad, Moony. Really bad, if I had to guess. I think we’re all going to have to fight.”

 

“Voldemort doesn’t scare me,” Remus says, even though it’s a bold-faced lie. He’s absolutely terrified.

 

“Course not,” Sirius grins fondly.

 

Remus watches Sirius circle his fingers round and round until he can’t take it anymore. He places a hand firmly on top of Sirius’s just to make him stop. Of course, he leaves it there even after the movements have ceased.

 

“When I die,” Sirius stops at the sharp look Remus gives him, “Sorry, _IF_ I die, you’ll come to my funeral, right? You won’t let them say any soppy things about me. Tell them all what a cool Die Young I was.”

 

There’s a glint of desperation in Sirius’s eyes. Remus thinks this is the part where he’s supposed to say the thing Sirius has really been wanting to hear, only he still doesn’t know what it is. Sirius’s hand flips over underneath his, and he feels the warm press of palm against palm.

 

“If you go first,” Remus says slowly, carefully measuring out each word, “I doubt I’ll hang around much longer. Too boring.”

 

And Sirius smiles, wide and beatific, like the March sun bursting through the fog of winter.

 

“You’d better be careful saying things like that, Moony. Sounds too much like a promise.”

 

* * *

 

There’s a train waiting at Platform 9 ¾ when Remus arrives. It’s for him. He knows this, but he also knows he’s supposed to wait. Harry needs him. Needs all of them. Right on schedule, he feels a sharp tug in his gut. The station disappears around him, and then comes the forest and the loss and the victory and the end.

 

Remus arrives at Platform 9 ¾ again, only this time he’s not alone. Through the train window, he can see James and Lily tucked into a compartment, cheeks wet with tears of joy and anguish. And there, perfectly framed in the doorway leading up to the train, is Sirius. He looks 11 and 18 and 36 all at once. He looks beautiful.

 

“Hello, Moony,” he smiles.

 

“Hello, Pads.”

 

The train whistle blows, and finally Remus steps forward to board it. Sirius hauls him up with a hand that feels solid and warm. The train totters away from the platform with a loud groan. A light breeze whips past the door, sending Sirius’s hair flying this way and that.

 

“You know,” Sirius says over the growing rush of air, “I seem to remember a promise you made when we were at school. One I don’t think you kept.”

 

Remus looks down at his shoes, nicer ones than he ever owned in real life. He doesn’t regret, knows Sirius doesn’t want him to either. Suddenly, warm fingers are cupping the sides of his face and tilting his eyes up.

 

“Glad you took your time,” Sirius says, brows creased and gaze dark, “You should have taken longer.”

 

Remus latches on to Sirius’s wrists, feeling the phantom of a steady heartbeat against his thumbs. “I guess in the end we were all Die Youngs,” he croaks.

 

The corner of Sirius’s mouth quirks up, and he wraps an arms around Remus’s neck and shoulder, steering him toward the interior of the train where their friends are waiting.

 

“There are worse things,” he says, knocking his head gently against Remus’s.

 

And Remus supposes there are.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from my fic drabble tumblr: https://daily-drabs.tumblr.com/


End file.
